


We Are All Killers

by EmperorNorton150



Series: The New Era [2]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: (kinda), Angst, Canon Compliant, F/F, Politics, Post-Canon, Revolution, after the revolution, it turns out Catra is popular in Space, she doesn't know how to deal with this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:35:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26599159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmperorNorton150/pseuds/EmperorNorton150
Summary: As word of She-Ra spreads across the Universe, a planet fights for its freedom against Horde Prime.Later, on a diplomatic mission, Catra encounters something she's not used to--hero worship. It's harder to deal with than you'd think.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Bow & Catra (She-Ra), Catra & Glimmer (She-Ra)
Series: The New Era [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1934074
Comments: 11
Kudos: 109





	We Are All Killers

_"The Killer [whale] is never hunted. I have never heard what sort of oil he has. Exception might be taken to the name bestowed upon this whale, on the ground of its indistinctness. For we are all killers, on land and on sea; Bonapartes and Sharks included."_ – Herman Melville, _Moby Dick_

_ANTARES STAR SYSTEM, 02.05.13076 R.P._

On the first day, it begins as a whisper of a rumor, an uncorroborated, incoherent account floating through the planetary infosphere. Something had……happened to Prime. There was a cat. No, it was a girl. No, it was a girl who was also a cat. And maybe a queen. But Prime had tried to kill her. And she’d escaped. Shed His blood. Blew up His space station. Stolen something He valued dearly. It starts as an anonymous posting on one of the conspiracy message boards, the kind of place that Horde Prime’s police don’t even bother censoring. It’s just a place for nutcases and harmless crazies to blow off steam. But it spreads rapidly. By nightfall, everyone seems to know that _something_ has happened.

By the third day, the story has coalesced. A girl—not just a girl, a warrior-woman, a goddess from the Old Days when there were still things like gods and goddesses and not just the purifying light of Prime—she’d gone onto Prime’s ship, onto the _Velvet Glove_ itself to rescue—someone. Or maybe steal something. Whatever it was, she’d done it. She’d taken something that Horde Prime wanted, taken something He had, and taken it away from Him. She’d _beaten_ him. By now, Planetary Police and Antaran Security censors are actively stamping out every post on the story they can find, but it spreads like wildfire anyways, through the networks. Everyone seems to have heard something, people are whispering it to each other on the stairs of their apartment buildings or in back alleys out of sight of the security cameras.

On the fourth day the planetary government makes the mistake of officially denying the story.

On the fifth day, somebody leaks security footage from within the _Velvet Glove_. A woman in gold and white, striding through the corridors of Prime’s flagship, cradling a broken companion. She glows with some kind of inner light. Other shots show the _Velvet Glove_ from outside, debris drifting from gaping wounds in the ship’s side, plumes of smoke and fire streaming into the vacuum. No one has successfully damaged the _Velvet Glove_ since the war with the First Ones, over a thousand years ago. There are more details now too—the woman is called _She-Ra_ , some kind of ancestral guardian spirit from the planet _Etheria_. That name is familiar, and people soon find it on one of the lists of newly conquered planets issued by the Voice of Prime regularly. Some kind of primitive backwater, supposedly. She-Ra; the name is unfamiliar but the concept is achingly reminiscent. There are old, old stories, tales from before the Light came and swallowed the Universe, stories of champions and warriors who defended people, who fought for the Spirits of the Stars against evil.

On the seventh day, all communications with the planet Torataj are cut off. Official sources are silent, but rumor says insurrection, rebellion on a planetary scale. That night, the first signs of open dissent begin to bubble up; security cameras smashed, police precincts vandalized, graffiti scrawled on the side of mag-lev stations and on storefronts. “DOWN WITH PRIME” and “ANTARES RISING”. Security officers are pelted with garbage and rocks, taunted by crowds who scatter at the first sign of a response.

On the eighth day, security troops open fire on a crowd protesting outside the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Antar City, the planetary capitol. Forty-three people are killed. Impromptu mobs gather in dozens of cities. Individual policemen or bureaucrats are attacked, and there are bombings of two government office buildings and a shopping mall.

On the ninth day, a new story begins to spread. She-Ra is the Prophesized One (though no one seems to have heard of the Prophecy until now), the one foretold by Destiny who will bring about the end of Prime. The Stars watch her footsteps and guide her path. Clashes between rioters and security police continue across the planet, as the death toll mounts. As evening falls, the planetary government declares a State of Emergency and imposes Martial Law.

On the tenth day, the Planetary Prefect is assassinated and all chaos breaks lose.

By the thirteenth day, there are riots in every major city. Prime’s clones are attacked wherever they can be found, as are any identifiable government officials or security officers. The 256th and 723rd Planetary Police regiments mutiny and turn their guns on their officers, and by afternoon what had been protests is turning into a revolution, as improvised groups of demonstrators seize control of the streets. Official channels are hacked, replaying footage of She-Ra or exhortations to overthrow Prime’s tyranny. Despite the official news blackouts, word is leaking in from off-planet, reports of dozens of planets in revolt. To rebel against the Light of Prime means death—annihilation of yourself, your people, your planet. This has been known for uncountable centuries. And yet it is _happening_. The silver sides of skyscrapers glow red with the reflected light of the fires, and people’s hearts are burning with hope.

On the fourteenth day, the Antares Liberation Front finally enters the fray. The ALF is, ostensibly, a revolutionary group, dedicated to overthrowing the reign of Prime. It is also one that has existed now in some form or another for over three centuries, with no real hope of ever accomplishing its goal. It’s a tradition, a way for a few Antarans to keep alive some fragment of memory of the Time Before, to allow themselves at least the illusion of action, a way of proving that Prime may rule the Universe, but he does _not_ know all, he does _not_ see all. Only the most delusionally optimistic had ever really believed they would ever actually live to see the Day of Liberation. Even now, most of the Central Coordinating Committee is nervous, reluctant to commit. Assassinating a particularly obnoxious official or smuggling a dissident offworld is the most resistance they’ve ever dared. But the cities are burning, and the government is teetering. _If not now, when?_ That morning a fusion missile—stolen from one of Prime’s armories over three centuries ago—is launched from a hidden base in the Ne-An-Val mountains. Its ancient chemical-fired rocket engine is functionally invisible to the tachyon arrays and quantum particle sensors that ceaselessly guard Horde Prime’s assets, and the central military command center for the planet is destroyed in a pillar of fire. Teams of commandoes armed with an eclectic mix of old projectile rifles and stolen battle lasers storm the Prefectural Palace, the Ministry of Order, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the main broadcasting centers, and the police headquarters for Antar City and a dozen of the planet’s other major metropolises. The fighting is horrific—clones and bots and local collaborators versus determined young men and women, firefights at close range in corridors and conference rooms as the ALF assault terms fought their way through the centers of planetary power. The casualties are unspeakable, but by the end of the day most of the targets are controlled by the resistance.

On the fifteenth day, Prime’s order fully collapses. A dozen Regional Governors announce their allegiance to the new government—whatever it is—and denounce Prime. The Minister of Order & Security, broadcasting from a secret bunker, orders his troops to remain loyal to Prime and suppress the insurrection. By and large, the Office of State Security and the Antaran Investigation Service follow his orders. The commandant of the Planetary Police publicly countermands them, and units of the various security services are soon fighting in the streets. Crowds storm the Central Prison, and the wardens, bowing to the inevitable and missing half their guard force, order the release of hundreds of political prisoners. That afternoon, a group of Antaran Liberation Front commanders, former government officials, and representatives of the popular resistance make a joint broadcast from the ruins of the Prefectural Palace, announcing the formation of a Provisional Government.

On the sixteenth day, the counterattack begins. Prime knows all, Prime sees all, but His reach is limited, and the Eternal Empire was facing an unprecedented crisis. Hundreds of worlds writhed in revolt, and the Antaran government had assured their overlords again and again that _they had the situation under control sir_ , that there was _no need for more forces to be dispatched, My Lord Prime_. It was clear now that that had been a lie. As the Provisional Government struggled to assert order and reclaim control of the streets, kinetic projectiles rained down from orbital stations, obliterating major centers of resistance. Entire swaths of cities vanished, blasted off the map, reduced to rubble and ash. Assault shuttles scream through the atmosphere, dropping battalions of clones and bots in strategic locations. Waves follow in their wake, entire divisions of Prime’s troops teleporting down to the surface as ten squadrons of His warships converge in orbit. Attempts by resistance fighters and rebels to combat them are swept aside with ease, the disorganized gangs of untrained warriors crushed by the mechanized Fist of Prime that has brought tens of thousands of worlds under His reign.

By the twentieth day, the Revolution is dying. Columns of troops drive into the cities, ruthlessly stamping out all signs of resistance. Millions of civilians flee in terror as the rebels dig in and fight block-to-block and house-to-house, matching their outdated and improvised weaponry against the modern tools of war wielded by Prime’s legions. Members of the Provisional Government are arrested or killed or vanish, as order is restored at bayonet-point, as it was always destined to be. Forlorn hopes and diehards fall back to bastions and citadels to make their last stand as the Galactic Horde reclaims Antares.

On the twenty-first day—

* * *

_ANTARES STAR SYSTEM, 17.05.01 N.E._

“I was right there” the Antaran said, waving his uninjured arm at the sprawling construct. From the look of it, it had begun life as a shopping center or office block. Now it was a fortress, and a battered one, the roof caved in, the walls scarred and scorched, doorways and windows barricaded with rubble. “Right there” he said again, pointing at one of the firing slits carved through the mounds of concrete and ceramic. “We’d fallen back here after they broke through our lines just south of Nur-Pon Circle—that’s where I picked _this_ up, courtesy of a Horde bot” he waggled the fingers on his other arm, bound to his chest in a cast, the blue skin of his face darkening with pride, and his head-crest fully erect. “They’d been hammering us with artillery since dawn, and half the building had already collapsed. And they were coming. All down the street we could see waves and waves of bots and clones marching towards us” he half-turned, gesturing down the boulevard they stood on. “We thought we were doomed. No, no, we _knew_ we were dead. But we intended to die fighting! I had my plasma rifle in hand, and I was getting ready to open fire, _just_ as soon as they entered range. And then……they stopped. All of them, all at once. They just…...stopped, and stood there, like lost little children, as we crouched in our little fortress and wondered and waited. We thought, it must be a miracle! The Spirits of the Stars must have taken mercy on us! And we were _right_.” Catra couldn’t hide a wince as he beamed at them. There was something fundamentally wrong about an old man—for the life of her she couldn’t remember his name, something Olak maybe? —an important man, a member of the Provisional Government, smiling at her so openly, so joyously, like she was someone he wanted to impress. She wished Adora was here to district him, but she and Glimmer were tied up in meetings all afternoon, and Entrapa had vanished somewhere into the bowels of the planetary reactor array. That left just her and Arrow Boy to get the grand tour of the city.

Bow stepped into the conversational gap effortlessly, mouthing some platitudes about galactic cooperation and that the real magic was friendship blah blah blah.

“Indeed, it is true that together we are stronger than we are apart, young sir. But without the intercession of the Great Goddess, we would none of us be here. Is that not true, _Ashar’yan’kuvar_?” Catra started, realizing that he was talking to _her_.

“What?” she snapped. “What did you just call me?” She could see Bow wincing out of the corner of her eye, but the man—fuck, what was his _name_? She knew she needed to start paying more attention in briefings—didn’t seem offended. He smiled even wider, as if that was possible.

“ _Ashar’yan’kuvar_ _._ In the Old Tongue it means ‘Heart of Fire’.” He reached out and brushed her chest reverently. “You are the one who loved the Great Goddess of the Stars, yes? Your love for her burned so bright that it overcame the shadows that bound her, that it reignited the sacred flame that she used to burn away the darkness of Prime! You see, even here we have heard the stories. The old tales, come to life. It is an honor to be your guide, lady.” For one of the rare occasions in her life, Catra was speechless.

“Your fortifications are good” she said finally, just to fill the growing silence. “Interlocking fields of fire, plenty of cover, good lines of communication.” She knew it wasn’t the right response, but the Antaran didn’t seem to mind.

“Ahh! You were a soldier then?”

“Yes” she said shortly. “I fought for Hordak for many years. I was the Etherian Horde’s Force Captain.” She thought _that_ would wipe the stupid smile off his face. It didn’t.

“Of course, of course. The Great Rebel.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Hordak, the clone who first took a name of his own and slew Horde Prime, yes?”

“Well—technically, yeah—”

“The Great Goddess, the She-Ra, she was raised among his ranks, indeed?”

“I mean, yes but—”

“It is no surprise then to learn that her paramour, the _Ashar’yan’kuvar_ also served this great king” he concluded, bowing to her over clasped hands. Catra wanted very much to claw his throat open, and she wasn’t sure what she would have said if Bow hadn’t jumped back into the conversation with some pleasantries. She let him dominate the conversation for the rest of the tour of the capitol, gritting her teeth and smiling every time their guide addressed her or referenced “the fire of her eternal love” or “the heroism of the Champions of the Spirits of the Stars”. It wasn’t until after they toured the ruins of the Prefectural Palace, the ruins of the Ministry of Justice, and the ruins of what had _formerly_ been the Plaza of Endless Light and was now to be known as the Plaza of Martyrs that their guide was called away to consult on some minor crisis and Bow was able to grab her and pull her aside.

“Are you ok?” he asked, with a frankness that still unnerved her sometimes. Usually she would have lied, but his bluntness startled the truth out of her. 

“ _They’re treating me like some kind of fucking hero!_ ” she snapped. Bow blinked.

“Is that…...a problem?” Catra scowled at him. “You did save the Universe” he pointed out.

“That was mostly Adora. I just—” she flushed. “—y’know—kissed her.”

“You mean reignited the sacred fire of the Great Goddess?” he said with a grin.

“ _No, I do not_ ” she snapped. “Bow, these idiots don’t know _anything_. They think Hordak was fighting against Prime! They think I was part of the Rebellion!” Bow shrugged.

“Well, we’re about three thousand light-years from Etheria right now. It’s not too surprising the story’s gotten a little mangled. Honestly, I didn’t expect them to have heard as much as they have. The last few planets didn’t know what a ‘She-Ra’ even was.” Catra growled, deep in her throat, and slashed a claw mark into a slab of concrete that lay tumbled in the street next to them.

“You’re missing the point. They don’t know what I did. They don’t know _anything_ I did. They think I’m sort kind of fucking storybook _princess!_ ”

“You feel like you’re tricking them, don’t you?” Bow could be annoyingly perceptive at times.

“I’m trying to be better about this kind of thing. Manipulating people and shit” she grumbled. “This isn’t helping. It’s like the whole planet’s trying to make excuses for me.”

“Wellllll…..if it upsets you so much, why don’t you try thinking of it as a punishment?” Catra stared.

“What?” Bow grinned.

“You’re always complaining that we forgave you too easily—”

“Commenting, not complaining—”

“—so why not look at this as your penance?”

“You’re saying…….that I should see having an entire planet of idiots worship me as a semi-divine mythic hero…..as punishment? Are you stupider than usual today?”

“Hey, if you don’t enjoy it, then it counts, right?”

“You _are_ stupider today. I didn’t think it was possible.” Bow shrugged again.

“Look, I don’t think they’re going to stop it, so you either cause a diplomatic incident or find a way to live with it.” Catra’s scratched her chin.

“Hmmm…”

“That wasn’t actually a choice!” Bow said hurriedly. Catra sighed, and flicked her ears.

“Fine.”

“Great!” He gave her a hearty clap on her shoulder. “C’mon, let’s go find Councilor Ta-Ke Olak.” They trotted out from behind the pile of rubble they’d been huddled behind and started across the boulevard to the makeshift local command post. “Don’t worry Catra, you’ll get used to being worshiped eventually. And besides—you are _so adorable_ when you pout!” Catra took a deep breath, remembered what Adora had said _(“You threw him off a cliff once, he’s allowed to tease you! Fair’s fair.”),_ and braced herself as the knot of Antaran officials across the street caught sight of them and began bowing. It was going to be a long visit.

Catra, despite what _certain_ slanderers and liars had claimed over the years, was _not_ prone to dramatics. She was a level-headed and realistic thinker. She understood _perfectly well_ , thank you very much, that in the grand scheme of her life, having people fawn all over her was far from the worst thing that had happened to her. She still didn’t enjoy it.

Entrapta was, of course, completely useless.

“People here seem to hate you at a substantially lesser rate than on Etheria” she announced without fanfare after the welcome banquet their first night on-planet. “Do I have your permission to run a social analysis of this phenomena?”

“Sure. Whatever.” She’d seen the Princess of Dryll lurking in corners after that, tongue lodged in the corner of her mouth, muttering notes into a tracker pad. What else was new.

Adora was, in her own unique way, even less helpful.

“It’s just a party Catra!” Catra stalked into the magnificent bedroom that had been assigned to them by their hosts, tail bristling and growling, Adora chasing after. 

“It’s a bunch of bullshit is what it is. How can you stand listening to it all?” She perched on the edge of the bed, scowling at her girlfriend, who sighed and sat next to her.

“It’s just…...I’m glad that people here appreciate you. They don’t care about your past, they just like that you helped liberate their planet. It’s nice. Isn’t it?”

“It’s not that they don’t care about my past. They don’t _know_ about it. They’ve made up a fantasy Catra.”

“That’s not true! I mean—ok, a lot of the details are wrong, and you and Glimmer and Hordak didn’t actually get captured by Prime while leading a mission to assassinate him and they don’t seem to have heard of Shadow Weaver and they think you were part of the Rebellion and I’m not actually sure that they realize that the other Princess don’t, like, work for me? But besides that—”

“Oh sure, besides _that_ —”

“—you’re a good person and you love me and you helped save the universe and I don’t see why you can’t just let people celebrate that!” 

“Because I don’t want people telling lies about me! I don’t want people thinking I’m, like, a hero or something!” Adora frowned, her brow furrowing.

“But you _are_ a hero!” she said earnestly. Catra rolled her eyes, and flopped back onto the bed, glaring up at the taller girl.

“Adora…....”

“Well, you’re _my_ hero” she said, crossing her arms. Catra’s lips quirked upward.

“You are _such_ a dork.” Adora smirked down at her.

“That’s why you love me.”

“Yeah, yeah, you don’t have to be smug about it.” Instead of answering, Adora leaned down to kiss her. Catra reached up and grabbed her shoulder, pulling her down on top of her with a little giggle. She’d _much_ rather cuddle with her girlfriend than continue this conversation. How do you explain to someone who loves you that not everyone does?

Glimmer was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the most understanding.

“I felt the same way” she said abruptly one night. The two girls were up late in Glimmer’s room, trying to pull together a comprehensive catalogue of Etherian trade goods from the various lists submitted by the Princesses in time for the commercial agreement negotiations scheduled for tomorrow morning. Catra glanced up from the list of Plumerian agricultural products she’d been impaling with her eyeballs.

“Hmmm?”

“After the Heart of Etheria, do you remember the victory party they held at Bright Moon? With the speeches and the parade and the festivals? I almost threw up the first night—I couldn’t understand why they were honoring _me_. Didn’t they know that I was the one who’d caused the invasion in the first place? I got so angry.” Catra got up, strode to the window. Even half-ruined, Antar City still had more lights at night than anything she’d ever seen. It was like the Fright Zone, combined with Salineas and Bright Moon, then doubled. It was overwhelming.

“What’d you do?” she finally asked.

“I realized finally—it wasn’t really about me, or Bow, or even She-Ra. We were just an excuse for people to celebrate not being dead. It’s the same thing here. This planet’s had the shit kicked out of it, and you and Adora are giving them an excuse to throw a big party.” Catra snorted softly.

“I’m not sure I like the idea of being a little toy for these people to play with.”

“Not a toy! An icon. Something inspiring. Didn’t you ever try and inspire the troops when you were in the Horde?”

“By inspire, do you mean ‘threaten to send them to Beast Island if they don’t win the battle?”

“Ahh, no. Look, if this is really hard for you, just tell me. We can find a reason to get you offplanet until negotiations are done, maybe a scouting run or navigation survey with _Darla_ —” Catra shook her head.

“No, no, I don’t want to cause any more trouble. I’ll be fine. I’m just not used to being the center of attention.” Glimmer uncrossed her legs and rose from the weird alien cushion-chair-futon-thing she’d been reclining on, crossed the room and gave her friend a quick hug.

“You’ll get used to it. I promise.”

“I’ll try.”

* * *

_ANTARES STAR SYSTEM, 26.05.01 N.E._

Personally, Catra thought it was a sign of how much she’d matured that it took over a week before she blew up at someone. A week of banquets and ceremonies and trade negotiations and diplomatic soirees—none of which she particularly enjoyed anyways—and she had to spend them all either grimly smiling as some important idiot droned on about what an honor it was to host the Great Goddess of the Spirits of the Stars and her beautiful paramour, or gently trying to correct their misunderstandings, only to have them ignore everything she said. You’d think that being venerated as a semi-divine being would help in the negotiations for a trade treaty and a mutual-defense agreement at least, but _somehow_ every time Catra tried to point out some unacceptable clause or article her counterparts would start falling over themselves to praise the _Ashar’yan’kuvar_ _._ If not for Melog, constantly radiating comfort and support and calmness, she suspected she would have actually murdered someone.

Catra wasn’t totally sure why she was so on edge that day. Things were finally looking up. Adora had found the magical nexus of the planet, and would be ready to perform the Restoration Ceremony in a day or two. Negotiations on the treaties were wrapping up, and it looked like the final result would be more-or-less acceptable to everyone. With any luck, they’d be _gone_ in less than a week. And yet, tonight’s party was rubbing her fur the wrong way even worse than usual. The music was discordant, everyone’s voice was too loud, the collar of her fancy tunic felt like it was strangling her. Maybe it was the giant paper-mâché statues of her and Adora they’d hauled in tonight to loom over the crowd, smiling idiotically. She gripped her drink harder and tried to tune out the prattling of the person who’d currently cornered her behind the gilded column where she’d been lurking. Councilor An-Shu Nadaia had been part of some of the defense treaty talks, and usually she was pretty tolerable. Not tonight.

“I hope you’re enjoying the festivities; it must be so nice to finally be at peace and have some time just to celebrate! I know that it’s been such a relief for me and, well, our little rebellion only lasted a few weeks, from what I hear you and She-Ra have been fighting together against Prime your entire life, so I can only imagine what you feel like _Ashar’yan’kuvar_ —” Something snapped, deep inside Catra.

“Don’t. Call me that” she hissed. Nadaia’s eyes widened.

“What? I’m sorry lady, I didn’t mean—”

“Do you know what we actually _did_ in the Etherian Horde?” Nadaia shook her head.

“We destroyed villages, mostly. Attacked innocent kingdoms, burned down old forests, stole everything that wasn’t tied down— _fuck_ , Hordak liked to talk about conquering the planet, but we were never more than a gang of thieves and murderers.”

“I don’t—I don’t understand” Nadaia said slowly. “Wasn’t Hordak part of the Rebellion?” Catra laughed hollowly, the old laugh that had rung out across battlefields all across Etheria. Her claws were out now, and she could feel the blood pounding in her head. She still had the presence of mind to keep her voice low, but she snarled at the other woman, who had backed up against the pillar.

“Hordak wasn’t some kind of _revolutionary_ , ok? Who do you think the Rebellion was fighting against? All he wanted was to be like his big brother. He was a tyrant and a conquer, and I was his chief commander, and I was _good_ at it. That’s what She-Ra did mostly, save people from me. Or try to. I killed the Queen of Bright Moon, I destroyed Salineas, I bullied every friend I had, I almost blew up the fucking planet, I spent _three years_ trying to kill Adora, so don’t you _dare_ —” Melog appeared between them then in a sparkle of light, his fur bright red and bristling, his fangs bared. Nadaia looked down at the apparition and her face lit up with delight. 

“Magic!” she whispered. Catra deflated. The rage emptied out of her like water through a drain, and all of a sudden, she felt very tired. She flushed, her ears flattening.

“Sorry” she muttered. Melog shrank down and turned blue, winding his way between the Councilor’s legs and whining. She giggled.

“No, no, I’m, uhhh…...there’s been some miscommunications I think.”

“I’ll say.”

“It’s just, I don’t—if you were, uhhh—”

“Evil” interjected Catra.

“Uh, ok, sure, but then how did you and the She-Ra, ummm, end up, uhh…”

“I thought it would make me happy. It didn’t. And Adora was enough of an idiot to forgive me when I figured that out.”

“I see” said Nadaia, nodding like that made any sense. “Did…...the Heart not happen then?”

“What? Oh, no, that went basically how you heard. But…...I wasn’t trying to save your planet or the universe or Etheria or anything. I just wanted Adora to be ok. I would’ve burned the rest of the galaxy down if it meant she was alright” she admitted.

“Fireheart indeed” whispered Nadaia, and Catra grinned a little despite herself. “I’m sorry” she said after a moment. “I didn’t know.”

“I’ve been trying to tell people” grumbled Catra. “Nobody will listen.”

“We’re just very excited to have you Etherians here” she said apologetically. “It’s like the old stories come to life.”

“ _Adora_ is. As long as I’ve known her, everyone’s thought she was special. And I guess they were right. I’m just an ex-Force Captain along for the ride.” Catra glanced at the older woman out of the corner of her eye. “ _You’re_ taking this very well” she commented. Nadaia was silent for a long moment, the murmur of conversation and music from the rest of the party filling the air. Finally, she said

“We destroyed all the records, after the revolution”. Catra frowned.

“What?”

“After Prime’s government here fell—His secret police had records on everyone. _Everyone_. There were files on every citizen, transcripts on who was a criminal, or an informant, or under suspicion, or—anything. But you don’t understand Catra, Prime ruled here for—forever. Nobody even remembers how long. _Everyone_ was guilty of something. Nobody was innocent. People did what they had to do to survive, but should that determine the rest of their lives? And who were we to decide what was worthy of punishment, who deserved to be forgiven. It’s not like any of _us_ were as pure as the stars. So, we took the databases out into the public squares and melted them into glass. Gave everyone a fresh start. A new beginning.”

“Do you really think it can be that easy?”

“I don’t know!” Nadaia smiled. “We’ve never had anything like this happen before. It’s a New Era. We’re going to see what happens. And we can do that thanks to the Great—uh, thanks to Adora. And you. You’re not the only one here who’s done things they regret. We’re all trying to find our way.”

“Huh” said Catra, giving the Councilor a searching look. She’d been so annoyed by these Antarans that she’d let herself forget. They’d spent their whole lives under the reign of Prime. Just a few months on His ships had almost driven her insane. “You were in the war. Weren’t you?”

“Combat Action Commander, 36th Freedom Wing, Antaran Liberation Front. Retired now.”

“So, you were on the right side then.” Nadaia shrugged, and pointed to a heavyset Antaran in an embroidered robe across the chamber.

“See him? He was the Regional Governor of Po-Tav until almost the last few days of the Horde’s rule, when he defected. Now’s he part of the Provisional Government. I told you, it’s a new beginning. For everyone.”

“Huh” Catra repeated.

“May I…...ask you something? If I’m being presumptuous, please, just tell me, but—”

“Go ahead” Catra waved her hand in permission.

“Will you—will you tell me the story of what really happened on Etheria?” Catra raised an eyebrow.

“You sure you want to know? It’s long. And not all of it is pleasant.”

“I’m sure.”

“Ok then.” Catra stretched, and reached down to scritch Melog behind his ears. Nadaia leaned back against the column with a small smile. “So…...you guys were right about me and Adora being from the Horde. We grew up there together. But it wasn’t.…...it wasn’t a very nice place. Hordak was one of Prime’s clones, but he fell through a portal or something and ended up on Etheria. I still don’t really understand that part, you can ask Entrapta for the details if you want. Then he decided to take it over because, like I said, one of Prime’s clones. I don’t know how your Horde did it, but Hordak used orphans as child-soldiers. I still don’t know where I came from. And the woman who raised us, Shadow Weaver—she was a sorceress by the way—she _hated_ me. But I had Adora, so it wasn’t so bad. And I thought I always would have her. But then one day she found this sword in the woods…….”

**Author's Note:**

> \- In the show, we see briefly that She-Ra has inspired uprisings against Horde Prime all across His Empire, but we don't get any details. I started thinking about maybe fleshing some of those out, and then got the idea to explore the fact that most of these people probably have basically NO IDEA of who 'She-Ra' is or anything. So they'd construct their own narratives and stories, fitting her in to local myths in ways to best suit local politics and such, and then they'd start fitting any new information they hear into that existing framework.


End file.
